As far as I can tell, it’s kind of a gel coating, but can it be smeared? Smudged? From my research, regolith is a powder.
Regolith is the name FIRST gave it.
6.2.1
“The majority of the CRATER
is covered by a 24-foot by 50-foot surface known as the “REGOLITH.” The REGOLITH is made of
“Glasliner FRPtm” gel-coated, fiberglass-reinforced, polymer material.”
that doesn’t really help much, of course I read that. I would like to know more about it.
Regolith IS a powder… but the slippery part of the playing field isn’t actually regolith… it is just called that in keeping with the lunacy theme (you’ll note we aren’t playing in crater, or moving actual moon rocks about either). The actual material is described in the manual as Glasliner FRP, which is currently being discussed in a few other threads here on CD.
Jason
The coating on the playing field is a type of gel coated, fiberglass reinforced, polymer material. I’m pretty sure its the same stuff ice skaters use when they don’t have ice to skate on if that helps.
your not actually playing on real Regolith. regolith is what is found on the moon. they are just calling the smooth surface that. heres an analogy:
Crater:Field::Regolith:smooth material(glasliner whatever its called)
I hope is it not synthetic ice. They run for more than $12 a square foot. I hope it’s the cheap plastic siding that’s ~$30 for a 4’ x 8’ sheet.
Don’t get thrown off by the term “gel-coated”. There isn’t gooey gel on it at all; the fiberglass sheet is just coated in an additional layer of plastic.
Product info
I don’t think ice skaters use this at all. It’s intended as wall and ceiling paneling, particularly in bathrooms.
“Regolith” is a term used to denote a covering of dirt over solid rock, it is essentially what we call “soil.” So regolith is what we call soil on another planet, its just we don’t call it “regolith” here on Earth. The regolith itself is a type of plastic sheeting sold in I believe 4’x8’ segments, if you want to try it out, I think they sell it at Home Depot.
Besides home depot, is there anywhere they can sell it for sure.
Can someone please post a video of just how slippery this stuff is. Not for me, necessarily, but for other teams and people. Maybe use another robot of yours, if you haven’t already destroyed it. And if you can, use the Rover Wheels. That would be good for a lot of people. Thanks!
I can not post a video however it is a hard concept to imagine…we have regolith in one of our batroom walls…we moved the wheel across it and it seems the calculated friction the predicted is incorrect…with 130lb robots traveling at 10 mph with the coefficint of friction at .0021…it means u will drift 5-12 ft with a drastic turn…goodluck to anyone who can work around this issue…it is realy slippery…please try to practice this urself and then think of ideas…
The regolith/field is the stuff used in shower walls. The plastic slightly textured I think. The rover wheels have less traction than the field itself. This was done most likely for safety and it’s cheaper. Yes the field is slippery. Last year when our robot would be going at top speed and turned sharply, we’d slip. We had two wide rubber drive wheels are 2 cheap-o in line casters.
The Gel Coating reffered to is not a liquid or paste but a thin hard layer of plastic that is placed on the surface of fiberglass composit parts to improve the appearence.
When a fiberglass canoe is made a thin gel, an appearanece coat of colored resin, is put on the mold first followed by layers of glass and resin. This gives the outside of the canoe its nice appearance. On the inside you can see the cloth or fibers used to give it strength. The gel coat is usually hard and brittle and breaks easily without the fiber backing.
The field itself is not that slippery. What makes it slippery is the combination of the field and the wheels. They cant make the field to slippery because imagine what it would be like for Pilots carrying the robot on and off the field. We’d be slipping and falling constantly.
Joey
The bumps on the “regolith” make less of the surface area of the wheel contact it at once which decreases traction even more. It’s not bad to walk on beause shoes are made of soft rubber, but we got a sheet of an almost identical product from Home Depot and it was unbelievable how little traction there was between it and the wheel. We couldn’t find anything else that had such little traction paired with the wheel, the closest was some sort of hard granite looking tiling used in the cafeteria of my school which we may end up using as a practice area if we don’t buy lots more of the plastic/fiberglass surface.
The field wasn’t slippery for walking on with the (dry) Vans sneakers I was wearing at Kickoff in Manchester for the official playing field, so I don’t expect it to be an issue as long as you’re not wearing high-heels to carry your robot on the field.
HOWEVER, be advised that when we went to pickup the kits, they had a sample of the field in FIRST HQ, and while my sneakers were the same, the snow we tracked inside made it MODERATELY slippery inside there on them material.
Bottom line is, as long as the field stays dry, & no one spills some soda or water on part of the field (or ruptures a compressor hose, and/or leaks some gear oil on the field) then it SHOULD be ok to walk on from a team member’s standpoint most of the time.
Be cautions anyways, & always plan for safety first!
Yeah my shoes were wet too. In order to see the field at kick off we needed, and living in WI, there is always snow and wet outside. I could tell that the slip was because of the mass amounts of wet shoes on the field, not the field itself.
In checking out this product with the manufacturer there seems to be two types of Glasteel paneling, one with a smooth coat the other which can be bought at Home Depot (Glasteel wall liner panel sku #88594 49018) has a textured surface. Does anyone know which of these might be the right one.l
Yeah, i would have to agree with everyone else, that the “regolith” is basically a thematic name for the playing surface and it is basically ice. And yes ice saters do use it in the off-season to practice on becuase it is so slippery that it is an all around useful material, especially for this game.